Soy un Perdedor: 5 songs about losers

This week's songs are from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Villagerrr, Tim Heidecker, Titus Andronicus, and Alex Cameron.

On loserdom, and singing when you’re winning

One of my favorite albums of the year so far (MJ Lenderman’s Manning Fireworks) is essentially a series of profiles of losers and jerks. Like Warren Zevon or Randy Newman, Lenderman’s songs sounds sincere, sung from the perspective of a fool. But there are hints the singer knows he’s a loser, even if the character in the song doesn’t. It’s a subtle difference. The Coen Brothers make use of that same dynamic with the characters in their films.

So to pick up on a hanging thread from week 1: the plight of the loser makes for more fertile ground for songwriters than singing when you’re winning.

Most songs about winners are usually grappling with the challenges they’ve overcome - or maybe what they’re celebrating is just not losing. “We are the Champions” isn’t so much gloating as it is justifying the accomplishment and validation by rehashing the struggle. The only reason “All I Do is Win” is any fun is because of how patently absurd all of the gloating is.

But songs about being a loser go back as far as songs about being in love. The Beatles, Merle Haggard, Bob Seger, and Springsteen all wrote from the perspective of the loser. Frank Sinatra’s final album before his first retirement, Watertown, is a song cycle about a suburban man whose wife leaves him, says she’ll come home, and (spoiler alert) doesn’t. None of these artists are known as self-pitying sad-sacks, but their perspective is often from losers convinced they just haven’t won yet. Listeners both identify with the struggles and latch onto the hope. In losing, there’s a little something for everyone.

Another week, another loss.

Quincy Jones was the connective tissue from Louis Armstrong and Count Basie to Michael Jackson and Will Smith. Along the way, he worked with Ray Charles, Frank Sinatra, Steven Spielberg, Red Foxx, Mike Myers, and everyone in “We are the World.” A major force in pop music and beyond. RIP.

“There’s only two things all Americans can agree on anymore: Burritos and Tom Petty.” - Marc Maron

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - “Even the Losers”

Tom Petty was the perpetual underdog. Like Springsteen, a large chunk of his catalogue is from the perspective of someone down on their luck and damned sure they’ll come out on top in the end. It’s a feeling neither one would shake, even when amidst the peak of their success. It’s more or less the arc of their lives, as both men came from abusive households. Where Springsteen was working towards establishing a bigger picture, Petty was always locked into the individual. This is about me. “Even the Losers” is a song straight from his experience, a time when he thought he’d finally landed his dream girl, only for her to very quickly make it clear it was a one-time thing. It lives in that inflated sense of self he bought into for the moment, and the deflation that followed. And yet, it still sounds like he had fun. Producer Jimmy Iovine was obsessed with the first 10 seconds of a song—it had to sound great bursting out of a car radio (the sound collage that starts the song is cut from the radio edit). Iovine was so pleased with the way this album sounds, he used it to calibrate Beats Headphones, which he sold to Apple for $3B in 2014. “It’s the best selling album I ever did. And there wasn’t one fucking think on my mind the entire time we made it. Just that. I’ve never been the same way in anything I’ve ever done after. I’ve never been the same guy.” Even billionaires reveling in their own successes can still feel like losers. So relatable!

Side question: Neil Young aside, is there a more celebrated guitar player who can get away with more single-note guitar solos than Mike Campbell?

Villagerrr - “Tear Your Heart Out”

This selection is probably closest in sound and subject to the losers of Manning Fireworks. It’s just as laid back, but a little mellower and softer around the edges. The chaotic behavior of the drunk and belligerent loser at the center of “Tear Your Heart Out,” is explained away in the chorus: “I understand he’s/ Just a good ole boy/ Fucking with your vibe again.” Everybody’s come across at least one. Out of Columbus Ohio, Villagerrr’s whole album Tear Your Heart Out carries this chilled-out tone. It’s a nice late-afternoon, cold-weather listen.

Tim Heidecker - “I’ve Been Losing”

Better known as part of the gonzo comedy duo Tim & Eric, Heidecker has been easing into a music career for a few years. His sixth album(!) High School was surprisingly personal—and as is the case with “I’ve Been Losing”—occasionally poignant. This is an example of a rare case in loserdom: one who’s coming around to the realization that they might be the problem. In fact, the song might be less about being a loser than it is about achieving maturity. Co-producing with Mac DeMarco and singing the high harmonies that really make the song is Eric Johnson of Fruit Bats and Bonnie Light Horseman.

“Why would you want to win in the first place when the rules are so perverted by so many crushing compromises, sacrifices, humiliations, degradations?” - Patrick Stickles

Titus Andronicus - “No Future Part 3: Escape from No Future”

The massive chip on the shoulder of being from New Jersey can be burdensome. You can see it in Patrick Stickles’ eyes and hear it in his voice in the introduction of this video. But like Titus Andronicus’ music, Stickles himself is clear-eyed and uncompromising in how he sees the world. I fell in love with punk music as a high schooler, which unfortunately for me overlapped with the genre’s concurrent commercial peak and its artistic valley. In the late aughts, bands like Fucked Up, Ty Segall, Jay Reatard and Titus Andronicus brought some life back into a stale genre. Sure, Fall Out Boy could reference Wes Anderson movies in song titles, but Patrick Stickles could turn his post-break-up mental-emotional state into an epic concept album thematically grounded in the events of the Civil War.

In “No Future Part 3,” Stickles calls into question the very idea of winning, reclaiming loserdom as a badge of honor. As is evident in the crowd singing along to the refrain (“You will always be loser”), there can be tremendous freedom in that reclamation. But it can also be a trap—an endless source of excuses or blame. It’s a nice place to stop in and visit every now and again, but you don’t want to live there. Sort of like New Jersey.

“We’re expecting a lot of ourselves…so it’s just our way of commenting on the vast feeling of sadness you can experience if you don’t match those expectations.” - Alex Cameron

Alex Cameron - “Happy Ending”

Alex Cameron’s Jumping the Shark is a concept album from the perspective of a failed lounge singer character Cameron created. It sounds like Elvis backed by only a Casio keyboard. And not just “like Elvis” as in the vocals, but the whole deal. Cool as hell. In “Happy Ending,” the album’s opening track, our narrator is recently unemployed and living at home. Rehashing his circumstances, he’s dead-set on winning back his girlfriend or getting a “happy ending” another way. Everyone has to create their own definition of success. Even the losers.

Thanks for reading. Enjoy the listening. Please share!